


Despite Everything

by Welsper



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Incest, M/M, Post-Canon, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:49:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23260495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Welsper/pseuds/Welsper
Summary: He remembered that feeling, Noah’s hot, damp skin against his own, a breathless voice speaking his name and a small form curled in his arms as he prayed for the fever to break.For all the worries it had brought back then, Basch wished it was merely a cold caught in the chill of the winters that froze Landis.
Relationships: Gabranth | Noah fon Ronsenburg/Basch fon Ronsenburg
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9
Collections: All The Nice Things Flash Exchange 2020





	Despite Everything

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VenatorNoctis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VenatorNoctis/gifts).



He looked smaller, without his armor, Basch thought as he watched Noah sleep in his sickbed, hidden away in Judge Magister Gabranth’s estastes. It had an air of familiarity about it, that image. Noah had been such a sickly child, often confided to the bed. Basch had stayed by his side whenever he could, reading to him and holding him when rattling coughs shook his frame. He remembered that feeling, Noah’s hot, damp skin against his own, a breathless voice speaking his name and a small form curled in his arms as he prayed for the fever to break.

For all the worries it had brought back then, Basch wished it was merely a cold caught in the chill of the winters that froze Landis.

* * *

“I’ve had enough of this! Enough of the fighting!”

Blinding light filled the platform and Basch squinted his eyes. Larsa hurled the dim fragments of nethicite at Vayne’s chest.

Basch caught Noah as he collapsed where he stood, swords stained with Vayne’s blood clattering to the ground.

“Protect him for me…”

“Does he look like he needs protecting to you?” Basch asked through Larsa’s voice shouting at his brother.

“Please,” Noah went on, his gloved fingers squeezing Basch’s arm tight. A smear of blood was left on Basch’s skin when Noah’s hand fell to his side.

“Protect him your damn self then,” Basch hissed. Noah’s eyes were fluttering closed and Basch damned himself, that now, when they had a chance, when he might have his brother again, find a way to peace, he would lose him again and there was nothing he could do -

Vaan sank down next to him, his hands glowing as he readied a spell.

“I don’t want anyone else to lose their brother,” Vaan said, with his face drawn tight and his lips pressed together as his magicks stitched back the ruin of  Noah’s body, held together by barely more than his armor. “Don’t make me regret it.” 

* * *

Noah had hardly woken since that battle on the Bahamut, that behemoth of an airship that now rested in the sands near Rabanastre. Fates be willing, she would be the last of her kind Ivalice would ever see. 

“Basch?”  Noah’s weak voice made Basch look up. 

“I am here,” Basch said. He handed Noah a glass of water and then helped him drink when the water threatened to spill in trembling fingers. Noah sank back into the cushions, turning tired eyes at Basch.

“What of Larsa?”

“Off charming Rozarrian ambassadors.” Basch held Noah down easily with a hand on his chest when his brother made to get up. “Zargabaath will be more use to him than you right now, you can barely stand.”

“Vayne?”

“He lives,” Basch said and perhaps that was too kind a word for it. He had seen him and Vayne did not look any better than Noah did. He had not said it to him but Basch was glad some of his own blows were responsible for it. The feeling was surely mutual.

“Pity,” Noah snorted and Basch had to smile. “Why are you here? Come to guard me so I don’t see to it and finish it?”

“In your state? You’d hardly make it down the stairs.”

“I might try. Might throw my gauze.”

“You _might try_ to find a way to peace, to cooperation, as we all must. Revenge won’t stop the world from burning. To leave Archadia without a strong leader now... You raised a smart child, but one so young and a mere two Judge Magisters can hardly keep another war at bay.” Basch shook his head. “Nay, not even that. That role of yours, I can play it for now, but any longer and half the palace would know. It took Zargabaath two days to find out. He found the spontaneous cure to your shellfish allergy rather suspicious.”

Noah’s lips curled into half a smile at that and that made Basch’s chest grow tight. It was not that bright smile Noah used to wear when he was younger, when Basch came home or when they’d won some ultimately pointless victory in the war. But it was Noah still, his Noah.

“Is that why you are not cutting it properly? You are making me look like a lout,” Noah said and Basch felt a pleasant shiver run down his back when Noah’s fingers touched the ends of his hair that already growing out again. “‘tis not like in the old days where we played pranks on the tutors… Maybe if things had been -”

“What good is it to think of what could have been? It is over now. We must live with what has come to pass.”

“I suppose I have made that rather hard for you,” Noah said, not meeting Basch’s eyes. “With...”

“It matters not anymore, Noah. You live, and so does Captain Basch fon Ronsenburg, again.”

“How? Ondore proclaimed you executed for regicide, if what we did should come to light, this feeble peace shall -”

“One more thing to pin on people too long dead to defend themselves. Courtesy of your former master,” Basch scoffed.

“Easier to let the truth be known and send him and me both to the gallows.”

“Perhaps so. Still neither Ashe nor Larsa would allow that. What is killing to us, one more death to add to the heap of corpses crushed underneath our boots in the duties we must fulfill? Yet they are not such people as you and I. If they can save one more soul, they would try. Even yours. Even Vayne’s.”

“And keep the falsehood up forever?”

“That house you serve produces excellent liars.”

Noah laughed. “Aye, that it does. They might look you straight in the eyes, proclaim it day during night and you’d find yourself wondering if they were _right_ even in the darkness.”

Basch reached out, his hand near Noah’s on the sheets. If he moved it a bit closer… He wondered what Noah’s skin felt like now. Noah looked at their hands and Basch saw his fingers twitch for a moment.

“And you, are you happy with that? With how things are?”

Noah’s fingers were shaking as they reached out for Basch’s. Horribly pale and cold they were. Basch closed his own fingers around them, rubbing his thumb over them to warm them. They were warming under his touch. Noah was alive. He was here, at his side. His name returned to him – both their names restored now. Dalmasca was free and Ashe would be queen.

Ivalice would know peace.

“Aye. I think I am,” Basch said.

When Noah’s head slumped forward to lean against his chest, Basch let him. When his trembling arms slid around Basch’s neck to hold onto him, Basch let him.

And when Basch wrapped his arms around his brother’s form to hold him close, Noah let him.

It was different, different than all those years ago. Noah was broader, heavier than that boy Basch used to hold. Yet it was him and this all felt so _right_ , like it had all those years ago, gods it had been so long, but still Basch wanted to, he needed -

And then  Noah’s lips on his were dry and chapped and warm with fever, a heat that burned Basch and still he craved more. 

“I’m sorry, Basch. I’m so sorry,” Noah mumbled against his lips, voice raw and desperate and afraid. That voice Basch remembered from that day, when he had turned on kin and country and left Landis behind. Left Noah behind and turned him into Gabranth. That voice that shouted in rage and anger and pain, pleading and insulting and damning him. The tears Noah must have shed all those years ago when Basch had not been man enough to turn around and face he could now see. “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me again.” 

“I’m not leaving you,” Basch said and kissed Noah’s temple. “I’m here, Noah.” 

Before he could stop Noah, his brother pulled him down onto the bed and Basch had to catch himself on his arms lest he crushed that bruised and broken body beneath him.  Noah pulled him closer, clutching at him as his tongue filled Basch’s mouth, hot and wet and needy. 

“Stop,” Basch said and gently pinned his wrists down. Heat flared through him as Noah struggled at that, hunger in his eyes, a hunger for him and Basch knew it was mirrored on his own face. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

Basch should put an end to this, go no further than they already had, but damn it, he could not.  Not with the way Noah whined when Basch touched him, kissed his face and jaw and neck. Not with the way Noah gasped out when Basch’s fingers brushed his shaft, already half-hard and pulsing in his hand when Basch took a grip. 

The weight of Noah’s cock in his hand felt familiar, so familiar, and he needn’t figure out how Noah liked it, because he knew, because that was how  _Basch_ liked it. Soon he had his brother, his  _brother_ , rocking into his touch, low noises and gasps muffled against  Basch’s shoulder as the grip of Noah’s hands on his back tightened.  It must feel rough on the sensitive flesh, his callused hand, but Noah was moaning and pushing into his touch, whispering his name again and again. 

He could feel Noah’s trembling hand fumble with his trousers, failing and Basch gently pushed him away. Basch took them both in hand and Noah moaned as their hips rocked together, seeking pleasure and relief and comfort and each other. 

“Basch, please,” Noah moaned, his raw voice raising every hair on Basch’s body as it rasped into his ear. “I want to feel you.” 

“Yes,” Basch breathed and pinned Noah again. “If you stop moving.” 

He blindly felt around in the drawer of the nightstand, filled with bandages and balms and took one of the glowing small bottles. Noah watched him with hungry eyes that made Basch’s cock twitch as he took off his trousers and carelessly threw them aside. He could hear his brother swear as he worked his own fingers into himself, wincing at the slight sting. But Basch wanted more than that, wanted that cock of his brother rubbing against his thigh.

“Please,” Noah moaned and Basch could not deny him, did not want to deny him. 

Basch shuddered as he sank down on Noah’s cock, rocking slowly as that thick length slid into him. His thighs strained as he held himself above Noah’s hips, not wanting to hurt him by sitting down. He had one hand on Noah’s thigh, holding him down as he started moving, low moans escaping him as his brother’s cock stretched him wide. 

“Gods, let me move,” Noah demanded. “I’m not going to tear any stitches, Basch please, I need -”

Basch leaned down and kissed him,  muffling his brother’s whimpers as he fucked himself on Noah’s cock. 

“Is this how you treat a sick man?” Noah asked, feigned accusation in his voice and it made Basch laugh, breathless as Noah’s length spearing him left him.

“It is how I treat my little brother,” he said and clenched down on Noah’s cock with a gasp. Noah hissed and tightened his grip on Basch’s hips. Basch cursed softly when he felt Noah’s cock pulsing and not stopping, wet heat filling him until he could feel it spill from him when his body could hold no more and it trickled down his thighs. He felt so full, and he cherished all of it, that warmth and Noah’s heavy cock in him, rubbing him raw, Noah’s moans and the way his bandaged chest heaved, the way he _breathed_. “Noah -”, Basch breathed before he came too, brought to his climax by that overfull feeling, that sweet ache.

They rode the waves of their orgasms out together, voices low and raw and their bodies a tangled mess, as close as they could get, after all these years torn apart by honor and pride and duty and hatred.

Noah smiled at him when they laid next to each other and they tried to catch their breath. And there it was, that thing Basch had sought, that thing he had fought for all these long years. What they had both fought for so bitterly, together, apart and against each other and together once more.

Basch was home.


End file.
